The outdoor season commenced with the spring Open Meeting hosted by BAC at Kings Park on Sunday 26 March 2023.

The club welcomed a great turnout with almost 500 athletes entered. Those in attendance enjoyed a fantastic atmosphere with some great performances.

Most would agree it was very windy and certainly not the warmest day we’ve had in March, with highs of around 8°C. The intermittent appearance of the sunshine in the afternoon added some cheer to faces but the athletes were less than impressed with the impact of the wind, especially the hurdlers and sprinters battling the force along the home straight. Despite this, they pushed through and produced some great performances.

Full results can be found here.

It was great to see so many Quad Kids and Junior athletes competing across a variety of track and field events and doing so well, it made us all proud.

There’s ore great photos of our athletes in action, including the Juniors, Seniors and our Masters (throwing the discus) are at the end of this report.

The athletes and officials had the benefit of digital timing and a photo finish as BAC hired Mark Delgado, a Level 4 photo finish judge. Mark is top class with experience officiating at a number of international competitions including the World Athletics Championships 2017 in London, the World Indoor Athletics Championships 2018 in Birmingham and the World champs in Oregon last summer.

Let’s not forget the excellent starters, Ben Kennard, Mark Purser and our very own Tim Hughes. Mark was the Chief Starter at Commonwealth Games last summer.

Many clubs, athletes and spectators commented on our professional setup in particular the digital timing and photo finish. People were keen to see this feature at future events and said it would definitely persuade them to return to King Park track meets.

On behalf of BAC, I would like to thank everyone involved in putting on a great event. Thanks for all the athletes, juniors through to masters and parents and friends supporting.

Also a big thank you to all the coaches involved in supporting the potential stars of the future.

And of course a massive thanks to the amazing organisers and officials who have supported us and continue to support these events. They braved the cold in woolly hats and may need to be bribed with more chocolate next time – we still don’t know where it all went, although we have our suspects.

The fabulous time keepers! Hands up if you ate all of the chocolate.

Well done everyone!! See more of the action below…